Google+: It’s got a great Android app, and big plans for the future

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Google+ released this week to a flurry of attention from every part of the internet (Mark Zuckerberg even joined up to try it out for himself). While most of the frenzy’s been about the overall design of the site, the way it works, and how it directly jumps into Facebook’s realm, half of Google+ is its mobile app — which is only available for Android at the moment.

Google’s official demo of the app sums it up better than words alone, but suffice to say: It’s seriously nice. It’s fast, it’s clean, it’s gorgeous, and it works the way it looks like it’s supposed to work. It’s only been available on the Android Market for a couple of days now and it’s already nicer in every way than the competing Facebook app is (and Facebook’s been on Android for nearly as long as Android’s been on phones). Check out the video below if you haven’t seen it yet to get a good look at what this app can do:

While making changes to your actual profile can still only be done in a browser, the Android app gives full access to every other part of Google+ that you could need while out on the go. Google’s learned from its various apps over the last couple of years, so we’ve got big, well-defined buttons, good use of whitespace, and full-screen swiping motions act as an intuitive way to navigate to related functions — like checking out posts by friends who are nearby by swiping the regular news feed to the right. Posting updates is easy and fast, and posting check-ins is a single tap away. Everything is literally at your fingertips with this app, and that’s how a touch-screen app should be.

The whole app feels like it’s polished to a point well past the beta-style limited release stage that Google+ is technically in right now. One thing does stand out, though: There’s an empty space on the front page when the phone’s held in portrait mode (which is how it would normally be used). Since the project has been designed from the ground up with specific purposes in mind, people are wondering what might fill that slot. Luckily, we do have a hint to go on, because somebody went snooping through Google+’s code and sent their findings into Engadget:

Google Games

The snippet in the image above shows references, clear as day, to Google Games — which doesn’t technically exist yet despite the fact that everyone knows it’s coming. That being said, what better place for Google to put their online social gaming platform than in their shiny new social network? Facebook blew up because people began playing games while there, so it only makes sense that Google+ would follow suit.

But that’s not the only thing the tipster found in Google+’s code. There were also strings that alluded to “ask and answer” style functionality, which makes sense considering Google’s recent acquisition of Aardvark. The general idea of Aardvark was that instead of looking for answers by finding web sites, a user could just ask the question instead — and get an answer from a friend or family member who knows the answer.

Google+ may have only just debuted, and its app may have only been uploaded to the Market days ago, but a pretty bright future is already forming for the pair of them. Add to that the impending release of an iPhone app and fully available invites to the service, and you’ve got something that Facebook might not be able to fight off.